Abstract
Upon its publication in 1962, this book became one of the founding texts of organizational sociology. Bringing together diverse approaches, it presented a new focus of interest: the formal organization. Blau and Scott raised the level of analysis from attention solely on individual participants and work groups to a broader understanding of organizations as collective actors. In the book, the authors reviewed multiple types of studies—including case studies, experimental research, and surveys—and integrated them to define new central themes. They used their own empirical studies of two social welfare agencies to illustrate the ways in which varying organizational contexts shape work group and participant attitudes and activities. Formal Organizations served to integrate research on both formal and informal systems, authority and leadership, and stressed the importance of links to the wider environment. This reissue, which includes a new introduction by Scott, makes this seminal work accessible to a new generation of scholars and practitioners.
Keywords
Business
Related Publications
Measuring Organizational Effectiveness in Institutions of Higher Education
The following are some of the criticisms which have been advanced concerning the goal approach to effectiveness: (1) There is a focus on official or management goals to the excl...
External Control of Organizations: Resource Dependence Perspective
Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book,...
Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation
Recent ethnographic studies of workplace practices indicate that the ways people actually work usually differ fundamentally from the ways organizations describe that work in man...
Price, Authority, And Trust: From Ideal Types To Plural Forms
This review article focuses on the three control mechanisms that govern economic transactions between actors: price, authority, and trust. In contrast to conventional approaches...
Market, Hierarchy, and Trust: The Knowledge Economy and the Future of Capitalism
Recent conceptualizations of trends in the structure of U.S. industry have focused on the relative importance of markets, hierarchies, and hybrid intermediate forms. This paper ...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1962
- Type
- book
- Citations
- 1081
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
1081
OpenAlex
1083
CrossRef
Cite This
Peter M. Blau,
W. R. Scott
(1962).
Formal Organizations.
Stanford University Press eBooks
.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804767361
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1515/9780804767361